Films that subvert genre4/6/2023 ![]() One of the few modern Japanese directors who has established himself internationally to the same degree as his forebears is Sion Sono the rarity of such a breakthrough summed up by his enduring designation as “enfant terrible” of Japanese cinema, despite having now directed over 50 features. It’s become a conduit through which Japan’s best creative talents can reach foreign shores – and in 2021, films about filmmaking may well be the movement that puts contemporary Japanese cinema back on the map. ![]() New filmmakers have crafted a vibrant and innovative, postmodern sub-genre that knowingly looks back upon Japan’s rich cinematic heritage while also offering a dynamic blueprint for future Japanese filmmaking. Even Takashi Miike’s most celebrated work, Audition, is titled after a fake casting call.īut in the past decade, this vision has evolved in Japan. See Takeshi Kitano’s Glory to the Filmmaker Kore-eda’s After Life or Ring director Hideo Nakata’s J-horror dummy run Don’t Look Up (AKA Ghost Actress). And, quietly, they’re beginning to steal some of the limelight – making films that subvert the very nature of cinema.įilms about filmmaking are nothing new: Federico Fellini’s 81⁄2 won an Academy Award back in 1963 (Judd Apatow’s tone-deaf 2021 pandemic comedy The Bubble, meanwhile, likely won’t), and Japan’s revered 90s generation all contributed to the subgenre, as well. But beyond the likes of Hirokazu Kore-eda ( Shoplifters), Kiyoshi Kurosawa ( Wife of a Spy), and Naomi Kawase ( True Mothers) – all major award winners in the past five years – there is a new wave of talent chomping at the bit. It’s not to say that these filmmakers are not deserving of the attention. Take a glance at the past decade of competitions like Venice, Cannes, even the Academy Awards – the Japanese films competing for the top prizes are, more often than not, by the same directors who were competing for them in the 90s. The video below explains Steve Neale's theories in more detail.The problem with Western discourse on Japanese cinema is that, for the most part, it’s stuck in the past.ĭirectors like Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu are revisited year upon year in UK cinemas, while even the major film festivals remain hung up on directors who made their names years ago. To the film’s audience genre identifies a liked of disliked formula and provides certain rules of engagement in terms of anticipation of enjoyment. ![]() To the film’s distributors genre provides assumptions about which audiences they should be marketing to. To the film’s production team (producer, director etc) genre provides a template. Genre is constituted by specific systems of expectations and hypothesis which spectators bring with them to the cinema and which and which interact with the films themselves during the course of the viewing process. recognition of familiar elements and the way those elements are linked in an unfamiliar way or the way that unfamiliar elements might be introduced. Popular cinema relies on audiences finding pleasure in difference and repetition i.e. To offset financial risks of film production by providing collateral against innovation and difference. To guarantee pleasure and meaning for the audience. Neale states that Hollywood’s generic regime performs two functions: The film must subvert convention enough to be considered unique and not just a clone of an existing film. How much a film subverts the genre’s conventions and stereotypes. ![]() A film must match the genre’s conventions to be identified as part of that genre. How much is conforms to its genre’s individual conventions and stereotypes. ![]() Neale states that the film and it’s genre is defined by two things: Steve Neale states that genres all contain instances of repetition and difference, difference is essential to the to the economy of the genre. Steve Neale’s theory of Repetition and Difference. Other popular combinations are the romantic comedy and the action comedy film. Types of fiction which may seem unrelated can also be combined to form hybrid subgenres, such as the melding of horror and comedy such as in the Shaun of the Dead. Other subgenres include the courtroom and trial-focused drama known as the legal drama. The basic genres include fiction and documentary, from which subgenres have emerged, such as docudrama. Most theories of film genre are borrowed from the literary world. A film genre is a motion picture category based on similarities in either the emotional response to the film (namely, tragic, comic, etc.) or the narrative elements. ![]()
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